A blog about a family who left on a major sailing trip starting in the Great Lakes.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

In the beginning - 980 DAYS

I have spent a large portion of my life in boats. My father was a canoe racer and I grew up thinking that everybody spent several hours of their day in a canoe. A sailboat large enough to carry your entire family and all their stuff may seem like a long stretch relation wise to a canoe, but I find they are similar. When I am in a sailboat I am speaking my native language with the world. I am truly most comfortable when I am moving a boat through the water. Sailing is a discipline. Much of who I am was learned through hours of hard work in a canoe learning currents, memorizing rivers and corners and shallows and submerged trees . Canoeing was how my father shaped me into a man. Sailing allows me to take my whole family along on an adventure where our actions together allow us to learn and grow and become mature and complete. Sailing requires and infinite knowledge set. You could never know all you could know. Ever.Sailing is how our family relates to each other. Most of the families I know have a center that brings them together so that they spend time together. That center is usually the television. Most of these families dont realize that the only place that they all do something together regularly is in front of the TV. I am not knocking them for this, at least they are together - and this is a huge arguement for not letting your kids have their own TV, you would then never do anything together.Sailing takes that together time and amplifies it. My daughter, Jannelle who is 8 sails a 27 foot boat and is leaning the "rules of the road". Her attention span is good for about a half hour at the helm. She sailed 12 miles in the Florida Keys (this is a two hour span) and sliced a perfect straight line on the GPS. The point is I get to do this with her. Sailing kicks any video game I have ever played.This blog is going to be about how we as a family sell everything we have, buy a boat and circumnavigate the world. Hope we make it.Rolland